Sunday, 22 May 2011

Potato blessings

An unnamed/unidentified South American andigena potato. The carmine-red splodges in the leaf axils give a clue to the deep red tubers it will produce.

So here's some positive stuff I've been getting on with. I've had some very generous potato donations from Rhizowen and Frank Van Keirsbilck, which I'm watching with great excitement as they grow. They include several colourful specimens of South American andigena (I think) types, a rare phureja variety, and some Maori (Taewa) potatoes which Frank grew from seed sent to him by a gardener in New Zealand. Being seed-grown they are "Frank originals" rather than named varieties, but I am happy with that. To me, a reshuffling of the genes of Maori potatoes is just as interesting as getting hold of existing heritage types, because it shows a lot of detail about the ancestry of these potatoes as the various parental traits segregate out. I'm very excited about them as they are very hard to get hold of outside New Zealand. It's a little difficult to tell what the spuds will look like, as all potatoes at this time of year look like brown wizened prunes regardless of what cheerful colours they might have had at harvest, so I will have to wait and see. But one seems to be a dusky ultra-purple and another a reddish bicolour. Among the South Americans there is a similar range of colour loveliness, including an unnamed pink and yellow bicolour and a black and tan bicolour called Puca Quitish. It's going to be a fun year for bizarre-coloured mash in the Rebsie household.

This is Pastusa Amarilla, a phureja-type potato from Owen. As the tubers were small I started them off in modules, where they grew like rockets, and this one had already begun to set some tiny tubers of its own by the time I planted them out.

I've not yet had time to blog about my TPS-grown potatoes from last year, and there's so much to say I don't know where to start. There were lots of fascinating colours and exquisite flavours, and some amazingly high yields considering the plants were seedlings and not grown from tubers. A great many tubers produced by last year's seedlings are now replanted and growing for the first time as tuber-grown plants. Some are HUGE ... in fact the biggest and most vigorous potato plants I've ever grown. This may be down to the fact that freshly created potato varieties are relatively virus-free. The more established varieties, unless you get planting stock which has been "cleaned" in a laboratory, will have become burdened with a collection of energy-sapping pathogens over the years. It could also be an effect of hybrid vigour, but that's probably less of a factor in potatoes than in other plants, because essentially all potatoes are hybrids. Their tetraploid (doubled chromosome) structure keeps their genes banging around like a pinball machine in every seed. Hybrid vigour is the norm in most potatoes, which is why they're such a successful food crop, and you should theoretically only see a drop in vigour if you inbreed them, i.e. grow seeds which have self-pollinated. But in an illustration of how nature likes to raise two green fingers to such predictions, the most rampant batch of triffid-aspiring monster spuds I currently have in the garden is an inbred line from self-pollinated berries of Mr Little's Yetholm Gypsy. These little beauties deserve a whole post of their own as they are wonderful, colourful and precious.

One of the most interesting potatoes-from-seed I have on the go is from a cross of primitive stenotomum cultivars, Pirampo x Khuchi Akita. This is an F3 "novelty line" from Tom Wagner, a cross of two traditional Andean potatoes which are not adapted to temperate zones such as Europe but are still fun to experiment with. I have been erroneously describing them as Bolivian, when in fact only Khuchi Akita is from Bolivia, and Pirampo originates in Peru. Any road, this hybrid is diploid, so it lacks the chromosome doubling which gives cultivated potatoes their big tubers and high yields. It's also limited in its ability to set tubers in the British climate, so I couldn't be sure that the plants I grew from TPS would give me any potatoes at all. But they did give me one very big surprise. They were completely and quite astoundingly blight resistant.

Last September I watched as all the potato haulms in the garden turned brown and rotted, including the ones which I was trialling for possible blight resistance as they had been bred to contain the resistance genes. Fortunately the blight in 2010 was late enough that it didn't curtail tuber production, and I got a good harvest, and was able to simply stand back and watch to see how the blight affected different varieties at different speeds. I had twelve plants of Pirampo x Khuchi Akita, in various parts of the garden, and there was not a speck of blight on any of them. They just sat there defiantly while the plague raged all around them, and then, as a final "sod you" gesture to Phytophthora infestans they put on a second flush of flowers just as I was scraping up the blackened corpses of every other potato in the garden. They were still flowering in October when the first frosts came. Their flowers were beautiful too, have a look at these ...

Pirampo x Khuchi Akita potato blossom, 2010.

I was really surprised, because I wasn't expecting this hybrid to show any blight resistance at all. There are a few species of near-wild Andean potatoes which are blight resistant, but not these; these are technically the same species as normal cultivated potatoes, just a less developed form of it. I'm still not entirely convinced that the resistance is genetic, and will have to see what happens to them this year before I allow myself to get too excited. But it does at least illustrate why I'm keen to experiment with unusual varieties like this.

As it turned out, about half the plants managed to set tubers. This is a pretty good achievement for an Andean landrace type, because they are dependent on daylength, and the long daylength in Europe is completely wrong for them. Consequently they don't start to tuberise until the days shorten in the autumn, by which point they don't have time to do anything before the frosts hit them. What I'm looking for in these plants is the odd one or two which can tuberise successfully in our long summer days. It's one of those things which is self-selecting by default and doesn't require much intellectual input from a plant breeder – if it doesn't tuberise effectively then it can't survive to the following year. Extreme Darwin in action. Another self-selecting trait is the keeping quality, since a short shelf-life is common in Andean potatoes. It's often possible for farmers in South America to grow a continuous cycle of potato crops, perhaps two or three a year, so they don't need to be stored for any period of time. They are just replanted shortly after harvest and off they go again. Can't do that in England though, unless you want to grow a crop of frost-bitten stumps. So I can only regrow the ones which stay alive in storage for six to eight months. This weeded out several of my Pirampo x Khuchi Akita beauties, unfortunately.

The tubers I got from the plants were small, deep-eyed, immensely variable in size (but still small) and not very abundant. However they did come in some absolutely glorious colours and markings, mostly reds, purples and intense carmine pinks.

Alas, this beautiful purple bicolour was among the ones which didn't make it through the winter. I didn't even get a chance to taste it as it was so pitifully low yielding. But I feel blessed to have had it enter my life, however briefly.

This one was a lot more promising. It's a bright red one with yellow eyes, though it doesn't look its best in this shot because it's unwashed. (Washing potato tubers considerably reduces the chance of them keeping over winter.) This was by far the best yielding of the lot - a pretty respectable harvest for a diploid landrace type. Only the largest tubers succeeded in surviving over winter, but survive they did ...

And this is what they look like now, blossoming like mad already. Notice that the flowers are more of a mauve colour than the magenta-purple blossom shown above. The flower colours did vary somewhat between siblings in this hybrid, though they were all somewhere on the mauve to purple spectrum.

Compost bins don't smell noticeably; have you thought of a nice patch of Dracunculus vulgaris? I had them till waterlogging killed them off, and the smell is unbelievable, like a month-old dead body. On a good day, I could smell it twenty yards off, and my sense of smell is almost nonexistent!

Do any of your potatoes show any blight resistance? I've got a little Skagit Magic seed, which is supposed to be resistant, but it hasn't been tried against our local strains yet.

Those kind of neighbours are vexatious and not worth of further thought - your potatoes however sound very interesting - also keep us posted on Luna Trick, I am reading your back posts and would love to know how they are progressing.

I'm full of admiration for your attitude, and even more so for the whole of this post. How about the magenta on those potato flowers. You're sure you didn't give them just the slightest tweak in Photoshop?

Robert - I have some Skagit Magic seedlings too. I don't know about the blight resistance yet, but hoping for some interesting colours.

Peter - updates will follow as time allows ... and I'll be happy to give you everything I have in the way of Irish seeds. Just let me know where to send them.

Madeline - ahh, I'd love a research farm! But I'd need a team of gardeners to go with it ...

Jeremy - haha - no Photoshopping on that one, no. The intense magenta-purple seems to be a feature of diploid potatoes, as I see it in both phureja and stenotomum types. Perhaps when potatoes went tetraploid that gene got left behind and now they are stuck with the pastel shades. The magenta blossoms were borne facing downwards though, so I had to practically lie on the ground to get a decent photo of them.

So sorry that you've now got a "peace wall" blocking out the sunlight. I suggest all we sympathisers make donations towards the purchase of the Fairholm Field so that ignorant, maladjusted, f*ckwit neighbours don't stand in the way of your manifest destiny.

Glad the phurejas made it through OK. If you can crack the blight thing you can have all my ulluco varieties and I will abase myself before you. Can't say fairer than that.

Awesome that you have got (apparently) the complete blight resistance in your hybrid. Should have some fun crossing it into other better tuberising varieties or just going for selecting bigger tubers in your variety. Have fun and best wishes.

RebsieI fully sympathise with you,we have had awful neighbours in the past(but now have lovely ones,who's 2yr old loves picking my peas and sitting down with her 1yr old brother and feeding him)The main reason for commenting is thanking you for soooooo much inspiration! I have been following a friend on her blog for months now but after reading your blog on the HSL site I have actual made myself a profile and am now a newbie blogger.I will defineley be following your posts,love the potato ones cant wait to try some different ones nxt yr I have grown foremost and desiree this year and feel so boring after reading your posts.

Ugh, that is one ugly fence! Are you allowed to paint your side of it? If so, I'd be putting up the biggest, brightest, hippy-est mural I could dream up, all in shades of green to compensate for the lack of actual greenery there now. "It's just decorative" ;)

I was inspired by your blog last year to save some potato seeds. so this year i grew them on and was only expecting to get seed potatos. most of the plants were hit by blight before doing very much, but two them have good crops in their own right. one a few large tubers and the other a lot of smaller tubers. the large one roasted and jacketed well, so lets hope it keeps through the winter well.Thanks for the inspiration.Greg

Just discovered your blog while surfing for seed swap sites. Loved it! And empathised too. I started trying to set up a fruit/forest farm fairly close to you and discovered I had the neighbours from hell. Gave up on that area and moved to my current garden where I have lovely neighbours and my proto-forest garden is beginning to come together. I'd love to see your garden and what you are growing. Are you interested in this?

Also just discovered your blog in the midst of researching Andean (& etc) veggies, especially tuberous ones - what LOVELY purples!! I also play Lever Harp - tho I haven't done a CD (keep thinking I will - hope you've made headway on your own label!

I have solid fences on 3 sides, & chain link on the W - nice to have the privacy they provide. My daughter lived to the W for several years, new folks are nice, & I have trees & berries on that side. I'm also a more 'thrift store clad' gal ... & think of doing a bit more on MY side, ... perhaps old doors (quite popular as backdrops at the farmers market a few blocks away, & available from a re-store)Would love to see the progress on 'taters & peas!

Hahaha! I love the bio-retaliation idea! Luckily, my family has never had to deal with nose government and landowners when gardening for over 30 years! We get a lot of our foliage from an online marketplace. They have a really cool "flower-pedia" that will give you some more insight to what you can do to annoy the new neighbors! Check it out. http://www.flowershopping.com/

Hello Rebsie, it's Jude here the musician. We have a big garden in SE London and we're growing stuff too. I've just got into real seeds and it looks like you have been incredibly incredibly busy with your gardening. What fun to find you when I was doing a search on my new Shetland black potato strain.Cheers!Jude

Almost a year since your last post. Is there any chance we'll see you return to your plant breeding exploits or have we lost you to your music career for ever? Really miss your blog posts, but wish you good luck with your music too.

Awesome that you have got (apparently) the complete blight resistance in your hybrid. Should have some fun crossing it into other better tuberising varieties or just going for selecting bigger tubers in your variety. Have fun and best wishes..

So, what did these seedlings become ? And what about your Mayan Gold TPS seedlings ? Your Pastusa Amarilla started tuberizing very early for a phureja. All crosses between diploids phureja, stenotomum, goniocalyx, ajanhuiri etc... are successful, so have fun !I'd be interested in TPS of Mayan Gold if you have any left. See my seedlist if you wish.

You're incredibly patient working with your potatoes. This will be the key to your success. We live out in the middle of nowhere with only a handful of houses within a couple miles and we, too, have huge neighbor problems. Unfortunate. Wishing you the best.

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Daughter of the Soil

About me

My name is Rebsie Fairholm and I breed vegetables for fun in my organic suburban garden in Cheltenham, England. I have a special love of heritage varieties, so that's what I use in most of my experiments. On this blog you'll find lots of information about heritage veg, basic genetics, hand pollination and seed-saving.

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In order to preserve the integrity of my independent reviews and keep this site a pleasant viewing experience, I don't accept paid advertising or commercial sponsorship of any kind.I may endorse products, companies and organisations and plug my own works, but this is at my own discretion and based on what I genuinely use and support.